{"id":10059,"date":"2021-05-10T18:06:14","date_gmt":"2021-05-10T18:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/?p=10059"},"modified":"2021-05-10T15:21:28","modified_gmt":"2021-05-10T15:21:28","slug":"poor-human-activities-aiding-butaleja-floods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/poor-human-activities-aiding-butaleja-floods","title":{"rendered":"Poor human activities aiding Butaleja floods"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a> &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\">Uganda<\/a>. <\/strong><\/span>Environmental experts and local leaders in Butaleja District have blamed the re-occurrence of floods to massive environmental degradation and lack of a political will to mitigate the effects of such disasters.<\/p>\n<p>The experts say swamps and river banks of Manafwa and Nakwasi have been mismanaged by the locals due to poor agricultural methods.They also blame the floods on failure by the government to erect embankments on River Manafwa and River Nakwasi and restore flood early warning systems.<\/p>\n<p>The system, which stopped functioning in 2016, had been installed by the government in 2015 to alert locals of the rising water levels.The concern comes following the occurrence of floods that hit the district on Friday, killing one person, destroying property worth millions of shillings and displacing many residents.<\/p>\n<p>The yet unidentified resident was swept by water as he attempted to cross Nakwasi River in Leresi Cell. Houses were submerged and household items such as beddings, clothes and crops were washed away by the ravaging floods triggered by the downpour from Mt Elgon. Transport was also paralysed and schools rendered inaccessible.<\/p>\n<p>The most affected areas were Butaleja Town Council and Busolwe Town Council.When Daily Monitor visited the affected areas, the displaced people were wandering without food, shelter, clothing, among other necessities.<\/p>\n<p>The district has been experiencing back-to-back floods since 1976, and environmentalists further predict that this is likely to continue.\u201cEnvironmental degradation is rife in Butaleja District and it has been worsened by the laissez-faire approach to the disaster by authorities,\u201d Mr James Wire, an agribusiness consultant, said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs of now, there are no visible efforts at an institutional level to stop this problem and it is worrying,\u201d he added.Mr Wire said there is a need for the district to enact by-laws that will protect the environment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSimple approaches such as requiring a permit before a tree is cut down in public or private land may seem harsh but bear fruits in the long run,\u201d he said, adding that residents should be given seedlings to plant trees on the river banks.<\/p>\n<p>The chairperson of Masulula \u201cB\u201d Village in Himutu Sub-county, Mr Mesulamu Wabaye, said there is limited land and this has forced the populace to encroach on what should be the green spaces, especially the swamps.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Lamula Were, the district senior environmental officer, said the situation has been worsened by locals erecting residential houses on the river banks while others are farming and quarrying near the rivers.\u201cPeople should stop digging up to the river banks. Butaleja District is on a low land area,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Were said about 60 per cent of wetlands in the district have been encroached on. She, however, said the environmental law will not spare those who are encroaching on the wetlands. She said the district environment office has started implementing a presidential directive to restore wetlands.<\/p>\n<p><b>Encroachment<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Mr Higenyi Kemba, a resident and an opinion leader, said the main cause of the floods is human encroachment.\u201cHuman encroachment around the river banks causes heavy silting that fills up the river bed, hence reducing the size of the waterway. When this happens, the route that water should take becomes shallow,\u201d Mr Kemba said.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Kemba said people should plant bamboo trees on either side of the river banks all the way from Bugisu Sub-region to Butaleja and Bugwere.\u201cBamboo trees will stop the silting. When this is done, the deposits already in the river can then be removed&#8230;,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Moses Wegulo, a resident, said repeated floods have affected them, especially in terms of food security and road network.For example since this year started, the district has been hit by floods four times leaving hundreds of people homeless.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis road from Mbale-Butaleja-Busolwe, which is the main link between the two districts is always cut off by floods,\u201d he said.Ms Madina Hifudde, another resident of Butaleja, said the affected families need urgent financial and moral support.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe appeal to the government and other non-governmental organisations to intervene because the situation is bad,\u201d Ms Hifudde said.The chairperson-elect for Butaleja District, Mr Michael Higenyi Bory, said about 15,000 families have been affected by floods.He said the crops destroyed include rice, sweet potatoes and cassava.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe request the government to intervene and help our people. We need shelter and food,\u201d he said.The district environmental officer, Mr Tom Wandera, said the district is making an assessment report to submit to the Office of the Prime Minister for assistance to the affected families.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe ask our people who are in flood-prone areas to relocate to safer places as we wait for any assistance from the government,\u201d Mr Wandera said.He said they have gazetted Doho Rice Scheme offices and some schools for people who have been displaced.The Resident District Commissioner, Mr Stanly Bayole, said the government has the political will and it\u2019s aware of the damage caused by floods.<\/p>\n<p><b>editorial@ug.nationmedia.com<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Uganda. Environmental experts and local leaders in Butaleja District have blamed the re-occurrence of floods to massive environmental degradation and lack of a political will to mitigate the effects of such disasters. The experts say swamps and river banks of Manafwa and Nakwasi have been mismanaged by the locals due to poor agricultural [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":10058,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,8],"tags":[233,240,234],"class_list":["post-10059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-community","category-homepage-english","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-uganda","tag-uganda"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Poor human activities aiding Butaleja floods - Uganda<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Environmental experts and local leaders in Butaleja District have blamed the re-occurrence of floods to massive environm ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/poor-human-activities-aiding-butaleja-floods\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Poor human activities aiding Butaleja floods\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Environmental experts and local leaders in Butaleja District have blamed the re-occurrence of floods to massive environm ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/poor-human-activities-aiding-butaleja-floods\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Uganda\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-05-10T18:06:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/05\/img-60994f5d28a44.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"480\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/poor-human-activities-aiding-butaleja-floods#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/poor-human-activities-aiding-butaleja-floods\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Poor human activities aiding Butaleja floods\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-05-10T18:06:14+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/poor-human-activities-aiding-butaleja-floods\"},\"wordCount\":827,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/poor-human-activities-aiding-butaleja-floods#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/05\/img-60994f5d28a44.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Uganda\",\"uganda\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"community\",\"homepage-english\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/poor-human-activities-aiding-butaleja-floods#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/poor-human-activities-aiding-butaleja-floods\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/poor-human-activities-aiding-butaleja-floods\",\"name\":\"Poor human activities aiding Butaleja floods - 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